parliamentary procedure Parliamentary procedure is the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Its object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense ...

, a

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and m ...

to ask a question regarding the rights of the meeting is a

privileged motion In parliamentary procedure, a motion is a formal proposal by a member of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action. Such motions, and the form they take are specified by the deliberate assembly and/or a pre-agreed volume detaili ...

that permits a request related to the rights and privileges of the assembly or any of its members to be brought up.

Explanation and use

Robert's Rules of Order ''Robert's Rules of Order'', often simply referred to as ''Robert's Rules'', is a manual of parliamentary procedure by U.S. Army officer Henry Martyn Robert. "The object of Rules of Order is to assist an assembly to accomplish the work for whic ...

Newly Revised (RONR), questions of privilege affecting the assembly may include matters of comfort, amplification, or safety. For example, it may be difficult to hear the speaker. In this case, a question of privilege could be raised to close the doors and windows. A question of privilege can only be interrupted by the motions to take a recess,

adjourn In parliamentary procedure, an adjournment ends a meeting. It could be done using a motion to adjourn. A time for another meeting could be set using the motion to fix the time to which to adjourn. This motion establishes an adjourned meeting. ...

, or

fix the time to which to adjourn In parliamentary procedure, an adjournment ends a meeting. It could be done using a motion to adjourn. A time for another meeting could be set using the motion to fix the time to which to adjourn. This motion establishes an adjourned meeting. ...

, or any

incidental motion In parliamentary procedure, a motion is a formal proposal by a member of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action. Such motions, and the form they take are specified by the deliberate assembly and/or a pre-agreed volume detaili ...

s that must be disposed of at that time. An example of a question of privilege is a motion to go into

executive session An executive session is a term for any block within an otherwise open meeting (often of a board of directors or other deliberative assembly) in which minutes are taken separately or not at all, outsiders are not present, and the contents of the dis ...

. A question of privilege cannot interrupt a vote or the verification of a vote. When a question of privilege affects a single member (rather than the entire assembly), it is called a question of personal privilege. Such a question may include a need for assistance, to be excused for illness or personal emergency, or the need to immediately answer a charge of misconduct made by another member. The member rises immediately and without waiting to be recognized states, "Mr. Chairman, I rise on a question of personal privilege," or similar words. If the member has interrupted a speaker, the chair must determine if the matter is of such urgency as demands immediate attention; otherwise, the member will have the floor immediately after the current speaker is finished. According to RONR, questions of personal privilege "seldom arise in ordinary societies and even more rarely justify interruption of pending business". A question of privilege (not personal) has precedence over questions of personal privilege, should they conflict.

References

{{Parliamentary procedure Privileged motions